But in addition to dollars, we also need members. Every member
not only provides financial support but is also an advocate, a critical
part of the worldwide free software network. In order for the decibels
to matter, we need the voices to amplify.

To that end, we adopted a "stretch" goal of 121 new members for
the last half of January. We need 71 more members in these
last few days to reach that goal.

There are many reasons to join the FSF as a
member, but today I wanted to
highlight a brand new (and much requested) service we are offering
members. We've launched an XMPP
(Jabber)
server, for FSF members to use. This service is federated, meaning
that you will be able to communicate with any other XMPP user, on our
server or elsewhere.

To take advantage of this:

If you are not yet a member, join
here. If you
use PayPal, there will be a short (24-hour) delay.

Connect to member.fsf.org using your FSF username and password
(FSF_LOGIN@member.fsf.org). Make sure encryption is on.

We've tested it (thank you to the members in #fsf on the Freenode IRC
network who helped out with that earlier today), but it is a new
service, so there might be hiccups. If you encounter problems, please
let our sysadmins know at sysadmin@gnu.org.

With Microsoft announcing that they will be moving all Windows
Messenger users over to Skype, this is a great time to bail and switch
to using free software for your instant messaging needs. And while
doing so, you will be displaying your FSF membership, providing an
easy way for others to find out about free software too.